Nope, that’s a misconception/misinformation. That’s just for Steam Keys (i.e. you can’t sell Steam Keys cheaper than on Steam). Everything else is fair game.

Yeah, it’s also ignoring that the issue with Apple’s “30% cut” isn’t that they take 30% of game sales. It’s that they’re forcing you to use their payment processing service to put an app on the store, and then they take a 30% cut out of that, even though third-party payment processing providers take much smaller cuts than that.

Physical stores also took a 30% sales cut, because there’s value in getting people to see your product. It’s literally been the standard storefront cut for decades. Microsoft and Sony take the same cuts for their console sales/transactions.

Valve does a lot more for companies than just put eyes on their games, too. They’re pushing for Linux-compatibility with Proton, they provide you with networking libraries and infrastructure for multiplayer servers if you use SteamWorks, Steam will optionally update your game’s SDL libraries so you have up-to-date controller bindings, etc. It’s not like they’re sitting there twiddling their thumbs and taking 30% of your money for nothing.

I’d argue Microsoft and Sony do comparable work for devs on their platforms too.

The whole argument against the 30% cut is so fucking dumb.

People who genuinely believe game prices will get lowered if stores take a smaller cut are delusional. You can literally look at the Epic Game Store and see that it isn’t even remotely true. The only games on there that are cheaper than on Steam are the ones Epic invested in specifically to entice developers/gamers to use their services. The ones that don’t have exclusivity deals are the same as on Steam.

Edit: changed “take a cut” to “take a smaller cut”.

I feel like Trump’s probably going to axe whoever is finally tackling these monopolies, unfortunately.

Every time I see non-tech people talk about Bluesky vs Mastodon, they talk about how awful the user experience is on Mastodon, and how it’s been an issue for years and they keep ignoring it, so people just go to Bluesky instead.

It definitely feels like a “Us tech folk who care about the tech love it, we don’t mind the user experience as long as the tech is here” vs the “I just want the same thing I have over here, the tech aspect could not be any less relevant to my choice of platform” kind of issue.

The big problem with DNS-based ad-blocking is that it doesn’t prevent redirects. Sure, you’ll get redirected to a harmless blank page, but then you need to go back to the previous page. You don’t have that issue with uBlock.

That’s not Amazon’s fault.

That’s mostly the fault of consumers who buy from Amazon (and other e-tailors).

There’s quite a few retail stores that don’t keep inventory, even for common things. Staples comes to mind, where it feels like half their damn office items aren’t in stock, so you need to wait for them to have it brought in.

The problem is that those same retail stores can’t compete with Amazon’s shipping speed. It becomes a case of:

• I want to buy a thing, I need it fast, so I guess I’ll check my local retails stores
• My local retail stores don’t have it in stock, but I can order it and it’ll be there in 4-5 days
• I can just buy it off of Amazon at a comparable price, and have it tomorrow

It’s alright if they don’t want to carry inventory, but they need to have the shipping speeds to compete, otherwise there’s no reason for the consumer not to just buy it off of Amazon directly.

Today we’re announcing a new end-to-end encrypted, collaborative document editor that puts your privacy first. Docs in Proton Drive are built on the same privacy and security principles as all our services, starting with end-to-end encryption. Docs let you collaborate in real time, leave comments, add photos, and store your files securely. Best of all, it’s all private — even keystrokes and cursor movements are encrypted.

Literally the second paragraph of the post (but I’m sure you haven’t read it, since you seem so busy replying to every comment here about how Proton is becoming Microsoft or something).